Good things happen. Bad day for pessimism.

We pride ourselves on being rarely wrong here at DHAIP. (That's the great thing about pessimism -- it's a winner's bet!) But when we are wrong, we admit it, and graciously. Election Day appears to have taken on a positive slant. What can we say? Our Tarot reading must have been off. The Hanged Man did indeed make an appearance, but he proved too little, too late. The Magician fumbled and the Tower has been breached. In our defense we will point out that someone (we won't name names) had spilled gravy on our deck.

At the time of this writing, the Democratic candidates have not only thoroughly seized the house, but are, improbably, neck-and-neck for the Senate. (For personal reasons we have a particular interest in the Virginia race, in which Democratic challenger Jim Webb currently enjoys a whisper-thin eight thousand vote lead. While Mr. Webb has his flaws, he is not, as George Allen is, the winner of the Biggest Horse's Ass in the Senate six years running. Good luck, Mr. Webb!)

The twenty-eight House seats currently lost to the GOP are a shocking enough blow to the existing system -- the loss of the Senate as well would be an unthinkable humiliation to the once seemingly invincible Bush Administration. A great number of highly unpleasant things would begin to happen to the Republican leadership, and depending on what the morning holds we predict a great deal of document-shredding and sudden dismissals in the halls of the mighty.

Now, we are as cynical as the next person about the major parties, and at this point about government in general, but if a Democratic Congress is able to provide a minimum of oversight to a highly unoverseen administration, we here at DHAIP officially endorse it. We do not assume such an eventuality will make the world a better place, but with a little luck it may help keep it from getting too much worse. (But watch out for that Tarot! The Bush presidency is not, unfortunately, over yet!)

For now, the GOP may comfort itself in the words of the great Democratic prankster Dick Tuck, who upon losing his 1964 California Senate race, famously said, "The people have spoken -- the bastards!"